After a series of tweets, messages and posts on various social media networks celebrating International Women&’s Day two days back, nothing could have worked out better than Union human resource minister Smriti Irani announcing the increased participation of Defence Research and Development Organisation women scientists in various initiatives taken up by her ministry in promoting girl education and bringing about a change in rural lives. With a network of 52 laboratories engaged in developing defence technologies covering various fields like aeronautics, armaments, electronics, land combat engineering, life sciences, materials, missiles and naval systems, the DRDO is India&’s largest and most diverse research set-up.

It includes around 5,000 scientists belonging to the Defence Research and Development Service and about 25,000 other scientific, technical and supporting personnel. With women scientists comprising about 20 per cent of the organisation&’s workforce, she said they could be a source of inspiration for any number of girls seeking opportunities to realise their dreams.

“We have launched the Udaan initiative to prepare girls coming from disadvantaged sections to excel in competitive exams for admittance to the Indian Institute of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management. Some of the brightest minds in the DRDO can interact with girls who are trying to take flight,” she said.

Under the Prime Minister&’s Special Industry Initiative, the National Skills Development Corporation and Union ministry of home affairs have been mandated to work with the corporate sector to bring about a positive change in the employment and skills space of Jammu and Kashmir. The Special Industry Initiative, known as “Udaan”, targets the youth of Jammu and Kashmir, specifically graduates and postgraduates seeking global and local opportunities. It thereby aims to provide skills to 40,000 youth over a period of five years in high growth sectors and it has two objectives — to provide exposure to graduates and postgraduates of the state to the best of corporate India and vice-versa.

Udaan&’s special focus is on addressing the low enrolment ratio of girl students in prestigious educational institutions and enabling them to assume leadership roles in the future. Irani was speaking at a national workshop on “women innovators for excellence in research and science winners” and said that women scientists of the premier research institute could also contribute to the success of the “Unnat Bharat Abhiyan” mission and address issues confronting women in rural India.

The programme was launched last year, piloted by the Indian Institutes of Technology and National Institutes of Technology across the country with the aim of improving the lot of rural India through technological interventions.

Talking about the “Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyan”, the other initiative of the ministry to inculcate an interest in science and mathematics, she sought the engagement of DRDO scientists in the programme to make it a success.

Irani had earlier said the inclination towards studying maths and science had decreased to about 30 per cent. This, she implied, was just a step in a Herculean task she’d decided to take up and she was leaving no stone unturned to take Indian education to a new level all together.

In a bid to form a national education policy that would shape an employability ecosystem for the next several years, the government had initiated the process through http:// mygov.in/ by inviting ideas and suggestions on key policy initiatives from the general public on this year&’s Republic Day.

India got it first national policy on education in 1968 under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the second policy followed in 1986 under son Rajiv Gandhi. But this time the approach towards the New Economic Policy is a unique as it has been made participatory, with the government inviting feedback from the grassroots involved in each and every village.

The government had put up advertisements in all dailies across the country stipulating that “suggestions are invited on 33 themes identified for discussions. Consultations will start soon from villages, block and districts to state and national level”. The many themes identified for discussions have been divided separately for the School Education (13 themes) and Higher Education (20 themes) sectors.

Involving all stakeholders, on 15 February Irani also held elaborate discussions with various institutions on the Skill India initiative of Prime Minister Modi, inviting suggestions from some 75 institutions on how to go forward in creating skill development centres across educational institutions. In keeping with the participative and transparent way of forming policy, in a first in the Modi Cabinet, Irani has also come out with a report card, “200 Days: New vision new approach” on her term in office thus far. Iploaded on the ministry&’s website, it was released last month and lists 35-plus initiatives that range from the “democratic process initiated for new national education policy”, a review of regulators such as the All India Council for Technical Education/University Grants Commission announcement of 19 new institutions, measures for quality education, international collaborations, scholarships for disabled students, the Ishan Vikas scheme to integrate North-east students, a choice-based credit system, etc.

Apart from Udaan, their Unnat Bharat Abhiyan is an initiative that involved engaging institutions such as the IITs and IIMs with communities around them for uplift. Under the programme, each IIT will identify 10 villages in its neighbourhood and work out technologies to solve the most pressing issues of the region. Swayam is another programme wherein professors of Centrally funded institutions like the IITs, IIMs and Central universities will offer online courses to aspirants.

Gian aims at attracting talented scientists and entrepreneurs, internationally, to encourage engagement with institutes of higher education while the Ishan Vikas is a comprehensive plan to expose selected students from school and college levels from North-eastern states to opportunities in the IITs, NITs and IISERs during their vacation periods.

Saksham, again, is an initative where the All India Council of Technical Education has decided to award scholarships annually to differently-abled students to pursue a technical education and, finally, there&’s the Swami Vivekananda scholarship for single girl children, an initiative that can achieve two objectives: educating girl child and promoting family planning.

For more exposure to India&’s education system, tie-ups have been made with various countries in different fields, namely India-Japan Social Sciences and Humanities, India-Bhutan E-Library, Bharat-Nepal Shiksha Maitri Karyakram, India-USA Higher Education Dialogue, India-Norway Joint Research, India-Germany Working Group, India-Israel Joint Research Group, India-UK Education Forum and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation New Delhi Declaration.

The premises on which the national education policy is being formed are quality education, social and inclusive development, community engagement, engaging technology for knowledge and transparency and focus on innovation.

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